Put Your Ideas to the Test - #11 – Experiment #1

          OK.  It’s time for the rubber to meet the road.  We’ve been trying to set up the parameters surrounding the possibility of doing an experiment that would demonstrate God’s existence.  First, we worked on defining a question that the experiment would be designed to answer.  Here is the question we have settled on:

          “What would Jesus have to do to prove to you that He is still alive, still God, still active in people’s lives, and can be known by those who seek Him; proof sufficient that you would live the rest of your life on His terms?”

          To get to this point, we discussed a lot of key points.  I’d like to summarize them here before we talk specifically about one way we can approach an actual experiment based on this question.

1.  There can be a practical benefit to performing an experiment about something you are not sure of…or even things you are sure of! [see here]

2.  Based on the way Christians describe God, and the way He describes Himself in the Bible (assuming there is “such a” God), it seemed like we could test out some of God’s statements in an “experiment.” [see here]

3.  We discussed the need to create a carefully crafted question to define our experiment.  We talked about the need to be open-minded with respect to this experiment if we want to conduct it.  [see here]

4.  We discussed how any result we might get from our experiment will be an answer to a very specific question with respect to God.  [see here]

5.  We discussed what might prevent us from even attempting an experiment in the first place:  that we believed the whole concept was unreasonable.  [see here]

6.  We addressed the whole related issue of why God doesn’t (or can’t?) make Himself obvious to us.  [see here]

7.  We went back to some old Biblical stories to illustrate some of the responses we human beings have when God tries to “make Himself obvious”.  [see here]

8.  I, somewhat foolishly, suggested that the existence of “free will” might be one way in which God tries to make Himself obvious.  [see here]

9.  We pointed out that this experiment was going to be personal.  Also, importantly, God has His own plans that could affect our ability to perform an experiment.  [see here]

10.  We stressed that you absolutely should not do the experiment just to gain information.  You have to be prepared for the possible positive results, even if you think there is zero chance you’ll see positive results.  [see here]

          With that background, I think we can dive in.  Without any further ado, let’s propose a specific experiment:

A.  I buy a lottery ticket and win the lottery.

          This is my proposed answer to the question posed above.  It has some excellent appeal, doesn’t it?  I mean, not only do I get to figure out if God exists, I also become rich.  So, I will conduct my experiment in this way:  I’ll go to the nearest drug store, let God control the random selection of numbers by the machine, and buy a lottery ticket.  If Jesus is still alive and really cares about me personally, then He will make it so that the winning numbers are selected (after all, He does know the future, doesn’t He)?  If I win the lottery, then I will believe in Jesus and serve Him for the rest of my life.  Oh, and I’ll give 10% of my winnings to the poor.

          Well, I hope by now you can recognize that such an approach is wrong on many levels.  But first let me say this:  it is simply not risky enough – at least certainly not for me.  People win the lottery all the time.  I don’t know what the odds are, but whatever they are, they are finite.  Personally, at least, there is no way I’m going to put my personal allegiance on the line in a game of chance.  There is some chance of winning the lottery, and by conducting this experiment, I am putting myself in the position of serving Jesus Christ for the rest of my life, whether He is real or not.  That seems like a really bad idea.  I believe the thinking behind this kind of an approach is that if I win the lottery, then at least I get something positive to balance out having to live the rest of my life as a committed follower of Jesus Christ.  Well, I think it’s a bad trade.

          If it was reasonable to go this route at all, then I would suggest a much more stringent and much more impossible approach.  For example, how about this:

          B.  I win the lottery without buying a lottery ticket.

          Now we’re talking about something that really seems impossible.  At least from the impossibility standpoint, this might start qualifying as a miracle.

          But, of course, there are other problems with this approach.  I hope you can see by now that you can’t just dream up something for God to do and expect Him to do it.  We have to figure out what God wants to do.  I mean, you can attempt the experiment in “B” above, but if nothing happens, it doesn’t mean anything.  Plus, how long do you wait?  Maybe you should add “today” to “B”.  And if that is the sum total of the experiment you’re expecting to run, then you might as well not even do it.  That’s not a serious attempt at all.

          So what does God want to do, if anything? 

Well, how would we figure out what another person wants to do?  Seems like a reasonable starting place for consideration.  For example, if you wanted to do something nice for your spouse, how would you figure out what they might enjoy?  How would you figure that out?  I would suggest there are at least four ways:

A.  You could ask them what they would like.

B.  You could observe the kinds of things they do and infer what they like.

C.  You could ask friends of your spouse what kinds of things they think your spouse would like.

D.  You could read things they might have written (letters, diary) and see if they expressed what they like.

I’m not sure how well this whole analogy works.  In fact, it seems a bit odd now that I’ve written it out.  But I’d just like use it to help guide our discussion going forward.  Next we’ll design at least one experiment based on Option D above.

Put Your Ideas to the Test - #10 – The Question Part IV

          We have been trying to define a question that will allow us to do an experiment regarding the existence of God.  Here’s the question as defined so far:

          “What would Jesus have to do to prove to you that He is still alive, still God, still active in people’s lives, and can be known by those who seek Him?”

          However, in this entry we have to address a key issue that is likely to eliminate most of our would-be experimenters.  This “experiment” is intensely personal and is not something that can be conducted in an impersonal, detached manner.  This experiment is not about gaining information.  And, as we mentioned, the outcome will probably only be relevant to the experimenter personally[1].  If we want to do an experiment to prove that God exists, with results that would be relevant for all people everywhere, well…good luck with that.  As far as I can tell, “such a” God doesn’t exist:  a God who is willing to make His presence obvious to everyone for all time.  On the other hand, we’ve already discussed [here] that we wouldn’t accept that particular evidence even if it were presented to us – we’d classify it as a natural event.

          But today we’re moving on to a personal decision that is going to have to be made by everyone who conducts the experiment we are describing.  To make my point, let me try out an analogy.  Let’s say you ask your wife “do you love me?”  She says “yes, I love you.”  And then you say “thanks – that’s nice to know.”  Will that work?[2]  What if she then says “well – do you love me?”  And then you reply “this conversation isn’t about me – it’s about you!”  That would not be an acceptable response.  I would not recommend trying out that experiment to see what happens!  A conversation like that cannot be one-sided, even if you want it to be.

          The point is this:  you can’t just ask God to demonstrate His presence to you and then, when He does, thank Him for His time and walk away.  Unlike most other experiments, this one can’t be one-sided.  If God is going to demonstrate Himself to you, His revelation is going to place requirements on you.  Before you start the experiment, you have to be ready for the consequences, no matter how unlikely you think they might be.

          If we conduct an experiment and find out that Jesus is still alive, still God, and still active in people’s lives, that’s never going to be just “nice to know.”  In fact, it means, among other things, that we are not the one’s calling the shots in our life – He is.  To conduct this experiment is to play with fire.  If we take the chance and conduct the experiment, and Jesus never existed, or is dead now, then…“whew”, you are fine and you can go on with living your life the way you want to.  You just played with fire and didn’t get burnt.  But if, by some miracle, the answer to your experiment turns out to confirm the hypothesis of the question (Jesus is still alive…), then you are no longer in control of your own life.  You just opened up something that you can never close again.

          I’m going to combine a couple of my past analogies and hope this helps illustrate the issue, although my analogy may seem a bit bizarre at first.  I’ve talked about how we can “lock and bolt the door” on God/Jesus.  Further, let’s use the analogy of Jesus as a lion – an analogy not without significant precedent.  But Jesus is “not a tame lion”.[3]  Letting Him in is not safe.  He is a wild lion.  He is not domesticated.  OK, with that background, let’s try a conversation…

Me:  “There’s a wild lion outside the door.”

You:  “There’s no lion outside – we live in rural America.  Lions live in Africa.”

Me:  “I saw him – he is right outside the door.”

You:  “I don’t see anything.  I don’t hear anything roaring or scratching at the door.  There’s no lion.”

Me:  “The lion hides unless you open the door.”

You:  “I thought you said it was a wild lion.  What wild lion hides?”

Me:  “Well, it may be a wild lion, but it’s also smarter than you.  The lion will only come in if you invite him in.”

You:  “That’s ridiculous.  No lion waits for an invitation.  And I suppose the lion will come in and want to have tea together.”

Me:  “No, actually, when the lion comes in, he will eat you up.”

You:  “Eat me?”

Me:  “Yes, that’s what lions do.  We’re not talking about someone’s pet here.”

You:  “You’re crazy – there’s no lion anywhere that waits for an invitation to come in, and then proceeds to devour you.”

Me:  “Well, it’s easy enough to find out.  All you have to do is open the door.”

You:  “No, I’m not going to open the door.”

Me:  “But how can you say there’s no such lion if you don’t open the door?”

You:  “I’m not going to open the door.  And there is no lion.”

Me:  “If you don’t open the door, you can’t claim there is no lion.”

You:  “OK – I’ll open the door a crack and then close it quickly.”

Me:  “No, the lion only comes in if you open the door and step back.  You have to invite it in.”

You:  “That’s a ridiculous rule – who made that up?”

Me:  “The lion.  Remember, he’s not a tame lion.”

You:  “Well, as I said, there is no lion and that’s the end of the conversation.”

Me:  “Are you going to open the door then?”

You:  “No.”

          I don’t know if that conversation helps clarify my point, but please give it some thought. 

So, based on this issue, I’m going to add another phrase to the question defining our experiment.  I think this added phrase is likely to eliminate many would-be experimenters (as it probably should).  Here is my revised question:

          “What would Jesus have to do to prove to you that He is still alive, still God, still active in people’s lives, and can be known by those who seek Him; proof sufficient that you would live the rest of your life on His terms?”

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[1] Note that because the experiment can’t make any general statements about anyone other than the experimenter, I changed the final phrase in my proposed question from previous entries.  The last phrase now refers to the individual experimenter (“…can be known by those…”) rather than the more general statement (“…can be found by everyone…”).

[2] It’s a rhetorical question.  But in case you really need help, the answer is “no”!

[3] That’s a quote from one of CS Lewis’ Narnia tales.